


Birds of a feather

by Dienda



Category: True Detective
Genre: Gen, Halloween Challenge, Prompt Fill, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 09:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5159003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dienda/pseuds/Dienda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What the hell are you anyway?” Marty scowls at him, he can hear the rustle of feathers every time the man so much as shifts. “You really a demon or something?”</p><p>“Or something.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birds of a feather

When Marty’s fifteen he stays home alone while his mom and dad drive out to Alabama to visit his Aunt Sally. His mama reminds him to lock the doors and take out the trash and call if anything comes up before kissing his cheek and getting in the car. His dad rolls his window down and glares. “No girls. Stay out of trouble.”

Marty waits ten minutes after they’re gone before rushing to the shed. Last Christmas, Uncle Tim gave him an air rifle and a box of pellets but Marty’s parents took it away. Dad was a soldier in Korea but he’s always saying he doesn’t want Marty handling a gun before he’s all grown up, so they took the rifle and told him they’d thrown it away. Marty found out that was a lie when his mama had him paint the back porch and he found the air gun tucked in the back of the shed.

Now, home alone, he fetches the rifle and the pellets and a handful of empty beer cans from the trash and sneaks out the back door. He doesn’t want the neighbors to see him and tell his mom on him; there’s a little creek a couple of miles away, just a clearing in the woods where he can use the rifle without anyone finding out.

Marty lines the beer cans on a fallen log and starts practicing his aim. Every time he shoots, the birds on the nearby trees screech and jump around on the branches. He’s taken maybe two dozen shots ―knocked down the cans almost every time― when he sees a big black bird taking flight. Without stopping to think, Marty takes aim and pulls the trigger.

There’s a cry and the unmistakable sound of something hitting the ground.

Marty straps the rifle to his back and approaches the bird, it’s twitching and crying, a useless flutter of wings on the drying grass. About a minute later, it stops. Marty feels a thick tendril of revulsion tighten in his throat, he steps back as the other birds in the tree start cawing and flapping like they’re calling their dead companion.

The squawking gets louder, louder, and Marty looks up to see dozens of black birds flying and circling around his head while the wind starts picking up. The birds seem caught in the gust, flying closer and closer in a whirlwind of black feathers and angry voices.

Then, like a mirage or a fucking magic trick, the crows dissolve into the shape of a person. The man’s tall and gaunt, clad in black leather; light brown hair curling wild around his head. Marty gapes at him, petrified.

The man walks to the lifeless bird, reaches down to touch a long hand to the bloodstained feathers. He scowls at Marty “Why d’you do that?” He straightens up and stalks towards the boy. “What gave you the right to kill that bird?”

Marty doesn’t answer. His fear is finally bad enough to jumpstart his body and he bolts. He runs home, rifle beating against his back, the box of pellets forgotten on the grass. He can still hear the crows cawing, can feel their wings batting above him. He reaches the house and slams the door behind him, locks it and proceeds to make sure the front door and all the windows are shut as well.

When he peers through the living room curtains, the man is standing on the opposite sidewalk, lighting a smoke, staring directly at him. Marty thinks about calling the cops but doesn’t think saying a man materialized out of a fucking flock of birds will go down so well. He grabs a knife and the riffle and holes himself up in his room.

In the dead of night, Marty peeks a single eye out the corner of his bedroom window and sees the tip of a cigarette piercing the night like a hellish firefly.

He doesn’t set even one toe outside until his parents come home.

 

The birds don’t go away after that, days and weeks and months go by but Marty keeps catching glimpses of them, at school, outside his window, perched on the bleachers when he’s at baseball practice. He sees the bird man too, sometimes ―when he gets in a fight with Tom Brown, when he breaks Anne Doran’s heart. A lone figure in a leather jacket and combat boots, the ever-present cigarette hanging from his lips; he never gets close but every time Marty’s eyes fall on him the man holds his gaze like he knows all his secrets.

 

Marty’s not good at Chemistry. He doesn’t really understand all that shit about covalent bonds and the difference between chloride and chlorate and the goddamned chlorite ion; he hates the class and he hates the teacher but if he doesn’t pass tomorrow’s test he’s probably gonna fail the class. Luckily for him Ed Smith got his hands on a copy of the tests answers and sold it to Marty for twenty bucks and a couple of beers he had to sneak out of the fridge. Marty doesn’t know how Ed got it but that’s Mrs. Wilson’s handwriting alright. He’s trying to memorize all the answers when there’s a tap on his window.

Marty looks up to see a large crow perched on the ledge, beak tapping against the glass. He groans. He shuts the curtain and goes back to the paper but then he hears a scratch and the sound of the window sliding open.

“What the―” by the time he turns around the bird man is already inside, tall and thin, the biker getup too incongruous and surreal in the middle of Marty’s teenage bedroom.

“Studying hard, kid?” he asks before plopping down on Marty’s bed.

Marty’s heart is hammering in his chest but soon enough the fear gives way to sheer annoyance; he sits back down at his desk and glowers at the intruder.

“So what? You some sort of demon sent to punish me for the shit I do?” At least he’s man enough to accept it’s an ongoing thing.

“Have I ever punished you, Marty?” the man asks with a wicked glint in his dark blue eyes.

The hairs in the back of Marty’s neck stand on end but he’s not too surprised the bird man knows his name.

“Maybe you’ve got one of those customer loyalty cards with my name on it and when you’ve punched all the boxes you’ll drag me to hell,” he says, a real thread of worry in his voice.

The man snorts a startled laugh. “That ain’t a bad idea.”

Marty scowls at him. “What the hell are you anyway?” He eyes the man carefully; he looks normal enough but there’s something unearthly and eerie in the lines of his limbs, like Marty can hear the rustle of feathers every time the man so much as shifts. “You really a demon or something?”

“Or something.”

“Do you have a name?” Marty asks because he can’t think of anything else to say and he feels like a dumbass thinking about the guy as _the bird man_.

The man stares thoughtfully at the ceiling, blowing out a long ribbon of smoke and kicking his legs up onto Marty’s light blue comforter. “You can call me Crash.”

“Crash,” Marty repeats. That’s like a dog’s name.

“Yeah.”

“Well, Crash, you can’t fucking smoke in here, my dad’s gonna whip my ass if he smells that shit.”

The man ashes his cigarette on the surface of the desk and smirks. “Maybe that’s the punishment you’re so fucking hot about.”

Marty glares at him and opens the window the rest of the way.

There’s an awkward silence where Marty tries to ignore him and concentrate back on the stolen test but the smell of cigarette smoke and the soft humming coming from the bed make him jump up like a coiled spring; he balls the paper in his fist and throws it out the window.

“There! Are you fucking happy now?”

Crash gets up like a languid cat and leans out the window, looks down at the crumbled test on the lawn. “I didn’t say a word.”

“Fuck you.” Marty throws himself on the bed and hugs a pillow to his chest. “I fucking hate you.”

“Yeah, well I ain’t exactly sweet on you.” Crash climbs out the window in an impossibly graceful movement and remains perched on the sill for a long moment before smirking at Marty. “See ya ‘round, kid.”

Crash lets go of the ledge and, before he can stop himself, Marty runs to the glass. He just sees a dozen crows fly off, their cries echoing against the darkening sky.

 

Marty gets into bull riding the summer after he’s finished high school. He likes the challenge and the adrenaline of holding on to an animal that could knock him down and trample him into a pulp. He joins the local circuit and though he has to start from the bottom ―lending a hand at the stables, cleaning the animals, helping the other riders with their equipment― he loves the whole thing and most of the more seasoned riders welcome him with open arms. Still, he has to deal with a couple of assholes, especially one Michael Rey who thinks he’s a big shot just for being a couple of years older than Marty.

It’s rodeo night and Marty’s posted at the bucking chutes, making sure everything’s alright as the riders mount the bulls. He’s watching Rey straddle a big grey bull when he notices the handle of the rope isn’t knotted right, it will slip at the first jolt of the animal. Marty reaches out to fix it but stops himself; Rey’s always treating him like he’s a servant, see how the fucker likes it when the bull throws him off in the first jump.

Marty keeps his mouth shut as the chute gate opens and sure enough, the bull bucks and Rey goes flying through the air. He falls hard on his shoulder and before the clowns can swarm the bull the animal takes another jump and lands on Rey’s leg. There’s a loud, sickening crunch and the whole arena gasps. All the rodeo hands run into the ring and carry Rey to the exit chute while the clowns deal with the bull.

Marty stands at the edge of the ring, he feels dizzy, sick. He scurries through the chutes towards the back of the arena, to the stables. He needs air, he needs to get away from the noise. When he steps outside he can feel the wind beating against his side before he hears the cawing. He starts walking faster as the first birds circle above his head. Crash hasn’t turned up like this since that first time in the creek and Marty stalks away from the gathering birds.

“Where the fuck are you going?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, I knew you’d fucking turn up.” He says as soon as he hears the other man’s boots following behind him. “Let’s skip the lecture, alright?”

Crash grabs his arm and pulls him around, eyes dark with rage. “Why? Are you fucking proud of what you did?”

Marty jerks his arm free. “I didn’t do shit.”

“Nah, you just let it happen.”

“Leave me alone.” Marty turns away, he wants to run home and hide like he did back then.

Crash reaches for him again. “What if he’d died, kid?”

Marty’s jaw tightens. “He didn’t die.”

“You ready to have something like that hanging over your head?” Crash hisses, his voice more beast than man.

Marty pushes him hard. “Shut up, Crash, he didn’t fucking die. What’s the fucking point of you, anyway?” He demands. “You should keep me from doing shit like this instead of just showing up afterwards to shake your head at me.”

“That ain’t how it works, you’re supposed to make your own decisions. I’m just the consequences.” Crash actually sneers at him. “You should know better by now, Martin.”

“Well I fucking don’t!” Marty shouts around the knot in his throat. “I’m a piece of shit.”

He makes to go back to the stables but he hasn’t taken more than a dozen steps when he feels his stomach seize up and he barely has time to hunch over before he’s throwing up on his own boots. He’s never felt more ashamed of himself; he hurt someone out of nothing but petty contempt. He squeezes his eyes shut to keep from crying and when he reaches his arm out his fingers close around a fistful of black leather.

“You’re a fucking mess, kid.” Marty feels a long, warm hand on the back of his neck. “Let’s get you home.”

 

 

At the end of his freshman year in college Marty’s doing well, he has good grades, good friends and stays out of trouble. He’s thinking about joining the police academy next year, becoming a detective. It’s around this time when he starts dating a girl named Carol, she’s sweet and cheerful, with strawberry blonde hair down to the middle of her back and the greatest ass he’s ever seen. She’s everything he could dream of but Marty doesn’t feel right with her, if he’s completely honest he’s not in love with her and doesn’t really imagine himself ever really falling for her. Carol’s always talking about the future though, she wants to meet Marty’s parents and take him home with her for a couple of weeks when the semester’s over. He doesn’t want to lead her on but truth to be told, he’s not too keen on giving up on a gorgeous woman who wants to have sex with him on the regular.

It’s Friday night, three weeks away from the end of the semester and Marty gets invited to a party. Carol promised her roommate she would stay in and study with her so Marty goes alone and proceeds to drink too much and fall into bed with a leggy brunette with a Georgia accent. He regrets it the moment it’s over and sneaks out of the girl’s dorm a couple of hours before dawn. Just as he’s leaving the building, a low voice makes him jump out of his skin.

“Carol is a real nice girl.” Crash is leaning against the wall like a nimble scarecrow, the tip of his cigarette burning bright in the murky darkness.

Marty throws him a glare but feels his shoulders relax around the other man. He’s come to think of Crash as a fucked up version of a guardian angel, his very own Jiminy Cricket in black denim and a leather jacket. “I swear to God, you’re worse than my mama.”

Crash pushes off the wall and comes to stand beside Marty, the low light of the streetlamp makes him look thinner and ashen, almost brittle. “Well, your mama obviously didn’t teach you how to treat a girl right.”

“I treat Carol right,” Marty shoots back.

Crash laughs at him. “Y’know, sometimes you sure make me think about throwing you over my knee and lashing your ass.”

“I’ll talk to her, alright? Tonight. Let her down gently.” Marty huffs. “Break her poor heart.”

The other man snorts. “Break your dick’s heart more like it.”

“God, you’re an asshole.”

Crash throws an arm around Marty’s shoulders and winks at him. “Birds of a feather, brother.”

“You’re fucking hilarious.” Marty deadpans. He reaches out and plucks the smoke from Crash’s fingers, Crash just gives him a look of amused surprise and fishes another smoke from the pack without a single word. Marty’s half expecting to have the cigarette vanish into thin air but when he takes a drag, the lungful of Camels Blue feels very real. He yawns. “C’mon. If you’re not gonna fuck off let’s get some food, I could eat a fucking horse.”

Crash smirks and tugs Marty towards the parking lot. “Now you’re talking, kid.”


End file.
